Now here's where we get to the following pages where we find the very best examples of creationists desperately doing whatever it takes to distort and fabricate dragon and monster myths to prove their dino/human idiocy. Although much of what is shown in Dragons in History is already debunked by yours truly, I'll try to make all this as brief as I can. As we shall see, this section is all about distorting myths and showing off artifacts that's anything but authentic. A reminder: What is presented is not exaggerated versions of people meeting up with live dinosaurs told over the years and become distorted over time. They're all creationist-made fabrications.
Woetzel first brings up the discovery of a pachycephalosaurid known as Dracorex Hogwartsia and how its head bears an uncanny resemblance to a head of a dragon. Note how he incorrectly claims that Dracorex was named because of its "dragon-like horns and teeth" while actually it was named because of the head looking like a dragon, not the horns and the teeth. Besides Dracorex didn't really have dragon teeth at all. Its teeth is leaf-shaped and suitable for eating plants. Note how his remarks about "..unlike other members of the pachycephalosaur family, which have domed foreheads, this one is flat-headed." implying he's unaware of other pachycephalosaurs that have flat-heads such as Homalocephale for instance. Lately Paleontologist Jack Horner have suggested that Dracorex is really a juvenile version of Pachycephalosaurus because the horns and the dome were not yet fully well developed. If so, then another creationist dragon claim have just gone down the tubes.
All fabrications presented on this page are mostly taken from Paul Taylor's book The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible which contains a collection of fabrications falsely promoted as evidence of people meeting up with live non-avian dinosaurs that doesn't explain why are there no human fossils found alongside dinosaur fossils even if these are what creationists claim they are. All fabrications are the work of creationists who did it to deceive their followers into believing their lies about humans and dinosaurs living at the same time. These are all false evidences made to look real and the appearances shown are highly deceiving. When I first look at those claims, I knew off the bat that the supposed descriptions that creationists claim to describe dinosaurs don't really describe dinosaurs at all. Much of the descriptions is what dinosaurs never in fact have, but was put there by creationists who not only fabricate dragon legends, but also create reptilian/dragon stereotypes to falsely look like dinosaurs to prove their pointless idiocy and give dinosaurology a bad name.
The first story is a direct fabrication of the story of Gilgamesh and his battle with a humanoid demon named Humbaba who was slain by Gilgamesh at the urging of his colleague, Enkidu while out cutting down trees for building projects. The next part Woetzel mentions is the apocryphal tale of Daniel who killed a dragon according to the Apocryphal book Daniel, Bel, and the Dragon (or Snake according to one translation of the Bible). Daniel likely killed a large python snake by feeding it a large cake filled with hair, pitch, and fat that caused the snake to burst open just like a anaconda belly bursts open when it tried to eat a crocodile that's struggling to claw its way out of the snake's belly. The second thing he briefly mentions is the claim about Alexander the Great shown to a cave filled with "great hissing monsters." But Alexander saw only one monster. According to the non-fabricated version of the tale, Alexander the Great and his army only saw one serpentine dragon, blowing, hissing, and popping only its head out of the cave from time to time whenever an army passes by. The serpent is said to measure about 75 cubits (120 feet) long and has huge eyes the size and shape of a Macedonian shield. No dinosaur eyes were ever that big, nor did they have serpentine bodies. In between them, Woetzel states that finding fossil remains of dinosaurs may have contribute to the stories of dragons and monsters such as the half lion, half eagle griffin which believed to be inspired by Scythian travelers who discovered bones and fossils of Protoceratops in Mongolia and thought of them as skeletal remains of griffins. According to Woetzel,
"In fact, some scholars think that the Greek historian Herodotus was referring to fossilized dinosaur skeletons and eggs when he described griffins guarding nests in central Asia."
That's only half-truth. Herodotus was only referring to a poem made by a storyteller named Aristeas who is said to wrote a fictional tale about his encounter with the one-eyed people of Arimaspi and their battle with the griffins for their gold. Herodotus never really knew about the Protoceratops fossils found in Mongolia. In the next paragraph, Woetzel claims,
"The Chinese have many stories of dragons. Some of their ornamental pictures of dragons are shaped remarkably like dinosaurs. Marco Polo reported in 1271 that on special occasions the royal chariot was pulled by dragons and in 1611 the emperor appointed the post of a 'Royal Dragon Feeder.'"
These are direct fabrications of accounts taken from The Chinese Classics which tells about a pair of dragons that flown from the heavens down to earth and were tamed and gentled by a man named Liu lei who was taught by a family of dragon tamers and eventually became known as the Dragon Ruler and Feeder for Emperor Kung Jia who entrusted Liu with 4 dragons to take care of and give them water and meat for them to eat and drink. When the dragons pulled the Emperor's chariot, they carried the Emperor in the air among the clouds as well as on the surface of the water and is even said to pull chariots for the gods. Plus the claim about Marco Polo making reports about the Emperor's chariot being pulled by dragons in 1271 is totally false. 1271 is the year Marco Polo, who was 17 year old at that time, was just starting off on his journey to see the great emperor in person for the very first time. The dragons Kublai Khan had and mentioned by Marco were just carved, gilded images of dragons hanging all over the walls of the emperor's palace. The next part made claims of the dragon's blood being used for medicine and their eggs highly prized by the families that may have raised Chinese crocodiles and alligators for pets and sometimes for food in reality. They must have thought of them as dragons because of their vicious appearance and the way they twist their bodies about. Look how Woetzel is tricking the viewers into thinking that the dragon in the Chinese zodiac could be a dinosaur,
"It is interesting that the twelve signs of the Chinese zodiac are all animals - eleven of which are still alive today. But is the twelfth, the dragon, merely a legend or is it based on a real animal - the dinosaur?"
No, not a dinosaur, but a legend. In fact, the dragon of the zodiac looks nothing like a dinosaur at all. The dragon, a limbless water serpentine creature, the only mythical animal in the zodiac, associates strongly with positive symbolism such as strength, health, harmony, and good luck. In fact the ancient Chinese would often put dragons above the doors and on rooftops to drive off evil spirits from the homes of people living there. Dragons in Ancient China were worshiped as gods and were hold in the highest esteem. Dragons in Chinese mythology is said to create storms, change into any form, and serve as loyal servants and companions for the gods. They have serpentine bodies, deer-like antlers, 4 limbs, wolf-like heads, demon eyes, carp scales, beards, and eagle claws just to name a few of the features the dragon has. Thus, the dragons of China are anything but a dinosaur.
And they certainly never look like the Azure Dragon figurines Woetzel displays photos of and falsely brand as dinosaurs in the next part of his crackpot essay. Also known as The Azure Dragon of the East, this wingless dragon serves as one of the four symbols of the Chinese constellations and represents East and the spring season. Woetzel, like all creationists, would present figurines that in no way resemble dinosaurs, yet are presented under a false pretense that if it looks like a dinosaur, then it must be a dinosaur, never mind the features that clearly shown that it's not. Then turn around and lie to their followers about them, claiming that a few handfuls of evolutionists like Carl Sagan have went and seen the images, acknowledge them to accurately resemble dinosaurs, and begin to wonder how such realistic depictions could have been made. The real answer is: they couldn't. None of the figurines are depicted accurately to resemble any dinosaur, pterosaur, and Mesozoic marine reptile whatsoever. Instead they're depicted as modern animals like dogs, wolves, lions, crocodiles and snakes.
Woetzel mentions sightings of sea monsters made over the years by Scandinavians that may have been based on sightings of seals, whales, sharks, and giant squid. The sailors would see those animals and make up exaggerated version of the tales that became part of Norse Mythology based on those sightings to keep people interested and entertained. Woetzel even claims that the vikings had dragon heads attached to the front of their ships to scare away sea monsters claimed to have infest the seas over a thousand years ago. These longships, called Drekkars, have dragon heads on front of the ships to ward off sea monsters of Norse mythology that are anything but dinosaurs. It is likely, however, that the dragon heads are also there to instill fear and terror in the hearts of the people they attacked. The image depicting a ship seeing a sea monster blowing water from its jaws may have been based on an alleged sighting of a zeuglodon, serpentine whales thought to be extinct 37 million years ago, but became a subject of various alleged sightings made by sailors over the years that claimed to have seen such whales swimming nearby their ships. However, no proof of such sightings exist and it is likely these reports are either made up or exaggerated versions of whale, dolphins, shark, seal, and squid sightings. In no way do these sea monsters resemble dinosaurs and their contemporaries.
More fabrications are mentioned including the St. George and the Dragon fabrication falsely depicting St. George killing a Baryonyx that's been exploited as a dragon stereotype to fit it into the tale while throwing out the fact that the actual dragon, in the real version of the story, had either bat-or bird-like wings, wolf-like ears, multiple horns on its head, poisonous breath, and is shown to be small with either 2 or 4 limbs sticking out of its body unlike the real Baryonyx that has no wings, no wolf-like ears, is fully bipedal, and has a straight neck and a crocodile head with one small spike near its eyes. Thus, making the notion of St. George killing a Baryonyx clearly false. Another fabrication claims (misspellings included),
"Dragons were even described in reputable zoological treatises published during the Middle Ages. For example, the great Swiss naturalist and medical doctor Konrad Gesner published a four-volume encyclopedia from 1516-1565 entitled Historiae Animalium. He mentioned dragons as 'very rare but still living creatures.'"
Also described in Conrad Gessner's Historiae Animalium (The History of Animals) as "living creatures" are unicorns, basilisk, griffins, sea serpents, and other fantasy creatures which Woetzel fails to mention along with references to dragons being compared with flying snakes and the illustrations in the book that resembles a dragon a scientist by the name Ulysses Aldrovandus is alleged to have seen and made into a mounted skeleton for a museum somewhere (his private collection actually). Both versions of the dragons look nothing like dinosaurs and their contemporaries at all, but a winged-fat snake like creature with only 2 limbs, flexible neck and tail, and a pair of bat-wings on its back. As a matter of fact, much of his collections were proven to be forgeries, including the two-limbed dragon that was made from what's left of a stingray.
Before the claim about Ulysses Aldrovandus' "discovery," there is another fabrication involving a town called Nerluc in France being honored for killing a dragon,
"The city of Nerluc in France was renamed in honor of the killing of a "dragon" there. (Picture from Taylor, Paul, The Great Dinosaur Mystery, 1989, p. 40.) This animal was said to be bigger than an ox and had long, sharp, pointed horns on its head. Was this a surviving Triceratops?"
No! It was Tarasque, the dragon killed by the villagers of Nerluc after she was tamed by St. Martha who paid a visit to the town one day. Tarasque is described as a turtle monster with 6 legs, a scorpion tail, a face resembling an old man, and a turtle shell that sheds once every 7 years. Then came the claim about Ulysses Aldrovandus and his discovery of a dragon that was killed by a peasant who gave the body to Aldrovandus who then mounted it and placed in his private collection. The body turned out to be a hoax made up of various parts of dead carcasses coming from various animals forged together into one monster that's described to have bat-wings, fat body, two limbs, coiling tail and neck, snake head, and large scales. According to the creationists, the alleged monster that was killed and given to Aldrovandus to keep was a Tanystropheus, a long neck reptile from the Middle Triassic Period. False. Tanystropheus is a 4 legged reptile with no wings and a stiff neck longer than is body and tail put together. In no way does it resemble the 2-limbed monster hoaxes illustrated in Historiae Animalium, Mundus Subterraneus (Subterranean World), a spectacular book written by Athanasius Kircherin in 1665 to describe what he believes how volcanoes erupt, what causes earthquakes to occur, what are fossils made up of, and so much more. And in Aldrovandus' Historia serpentum et draconum (The History of Serpents and Dragons). In the next fabrication, Woetzel claims,
"The story is told of a tenth century Irishman who encountered a large clawed beast having 'iron on its tail which pointed backwards.' It had a head similar to a horse. It also had thick legs and strong claws. Could this be a remaining Stegosaurus?"
No, wrong again. Try Paiste. An 11 foot tall serpentine monster with 2 horns on either side of the head, scales the size of dinner plates, long fangs, black tongue, and dangerous venom that was tricked into being bound by 3 rods and commanded to be submerged in the lake near by its cave to await God's Judgment at the end of the world. The Dragons of Ireland, also known as Celtic Dragons, are described to have large coiling bodies, bat-wings, and arrow-tipped coiling tails and horns on their horse-like heads. These monsters are symbols of evil and paganism and had to be driven out of Ireland at once. St Patrick did the honor. But there were still dragons left in a few locations in Ireland at the time of St. Patrick's death. So his successor Saint Murrough O'Heaney came and finished the job by tricking Paiste into being bound in 3 rods and commanding him to slither into Lough Foyle, a lake nearby where Paiste lived, where Paiste remains to this day until God comes back to release him and allow him to devastate the land at the end of the world.
The reference to the head of a horse likely came from another tale of Fergus mac Leti's encounter with a dragon named Muirdris, also known as the Water Horse. This huge dragon gave Fergus mac Leti such an ugly face that when Fergus found out about what happened to his face, he went back and slew Muirdris out of vengeance.
The next claim involves various historians such as Josephus and Herodotus describing "fiery flying serpents" plaguing Egypt and Arabia. Woetzel and another creationist John Goertzen claims the descriptions of flying serpents match that of pterosaurs such as Dimorphodon, an Early Jurassic pterosaur. False. The serpents in the writings of Josephus and Herodotus are described to have no limbs and reproduce by having the females kill their mates after mating and bearing babies that eat their way out of their mothers' body unlike pterosaurs that have limbs and are only egg layers. Plus, the ribs and backbones found on the shores of the Nile most likely have came from either the carcasses of some dead snake, draco volans, Spinosaurid fossils from the Cretaceous period that were unearthed and placed into shrines by the Egyptians as told in Adrienne Mayor's The First Fossil Hunters pg. 135-136, or they are bones of modern animals that have been washed ashore out of the rocks every rainy season. So no, not pterosaurs the ancient writers are describing, but Amphitheres, winged snakes with no limbs, colorful scales, and bat or bird-like wings.
The next claim involves a collection of medieval books known as bestiaries which tells about stones, plants, and animals, some real, others mythical, in an allegory format to teach people about Christian principles and morality. One of the mythical animals in the bestiaries includes the dragon in which Woetzel claims,
"One such volume is the Aberdeen Bestiary, written in the early 1500's and preserved in the library of Henry VIII. Along with the newt, the salamander, and various kinds of snakes is the description and depiction of the dragon: 'The dragon is bigger than all other snakes or all other living things on earth. For this reason, the Greeks call it dracon, from this is derived its Latin name draco. The dragon, it is said, is often drawn forth from caves into the open air, causing the air to become turbulent. The dragon has a crest, a small mouth, and narrow blow-holes through which it breathes and puts forth its tongue. Its strength lies not in its teeth but in its tail, and it kills with a blow rather than a bite. It is free from poison. They say that it does not need poison to kill things, because it kills anything around which it wraps its tail. From the dragon not even the elephant, with its huge size, is safe. For lurking on paths along which elephants are accustomed to pass, the dragon knots its tail around their legs and kills them by suffocation. Dragons are born in Ethiopia and India, where it is hot all year round.'"
Creationists show excepts and images from ancient art and literature under a false pretense that if animals like the bear and the lion are real and living, then chances are the dragon, called "dinosaur" in the creationists' delusional eyes, must be real too. Same thing goes for unicorns, mermaids, trees that grow geese, griffins, and other mythical beasts mentioned in the bestiaries if that's the case. Let me be frank with you— it is absolutely worthless to rely on such literature as ancient bestiaries for scientific and natural knowledge on rocks, plants, and animals as well as evidence for dinosaurs because first off, dinosaurs were completely unheard of back then and secondly, some of the rocks, plants, and animals found in such literature like griffins, dragons, barnacle trees, fire stones, and unicorns are non-existent. And third, even though other plants, animals, and rocks such as bear, lion, amethyst, sapphire, and mandrakes mentioned in the books are real, the descriptions of them are not. For example, we all know that bees are not birds, but insects that make honey, but in the bestiaries, the bee is regarded as a bird that's born from the dead bodies of cattle. Although mandrakes are real plants that produce fruit, according to the bestiaries, mandrakes have human like roots and is known to shriek when someone tries to pull them out of the ground. Oysters are indeed mollusks that produce pearls by covering an irritant with nacre, a combination of calcium carbonate and conchiolin, also know as the Mother of Pearl, but in the bestiaries, they are mistaken as stones that produce pearls by just taking in dew from the sky. And we all know that the ostrich is very caring towards her eggs and young, but tell that to the authors of the bestiaries who claims that the ostrich is a bird that can care less about her eggs let alone her young and hide her head in the sand when she's threatened. The dragon told in the bestiaries are described as the greatest of all serpents who can kill its prey with its tail and is feared by elephants they kill by coiling around their bodies and suffocate them. The dragon is shown to have either 2 or 4 wings of either bat or bird, two or four limbs, serpentine bodies, wolf ears, and poisonous breath— features never found on any dinosaur at all. Because of the dragon, female elephants had to bore their babies in the lake while the males stand guard on the shores to repel the dragon if the dragon comes near to devour their baby.
Continued next post.
